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Intimacies: Love and Sex Across Cultures
No culture is ever completely successful or satisfied with its synthesis of romantic love, companionship, and sexual desire. Whether the setting is a busy metropolis or a quiet farming village, a tension always exists between a community's sexual habits and customs and what it believes to be the proper context for love. Even in Western societies, we prefer sexual passion to romance and companionship, and no study of any culture has shown that individuals regard passion and affection equally.
The pursuit of love and sex has generated an infinite number of ambiguities and contradictions, yet every community hopes to find a resolution to this conflict either by joining, dividing, or stressing one act over the other. In this follow-up to Romantic A Universal Experience? , William R. Jankowiak examines how different cultures rationalize the expression of passionate and comfort love and physical sex. He begins by mapping out the intricacies of the love/sex conundrum and the psychological dilemma of reconciling these competing forces. He then follows with essays on sex, love, and intimacy among Central African foragers and farmers; the love dyad in Lithuania; intimacy among the Lahu of Southwestern China; the interplay of love, sex, and marriage in the High Himalayas; verbalized experiences of love and sexuality in Indonesia; love work as it relates to sex work among prostitutes; intimacies and estrangements in the marital and extramarital relationships of Huli men; infidelity and masculinity in Southwestern Nigeria; and the ritual of sex and the rejuvenation of the love bond among married couples in the United States.
The pursuit of love and sex has generated an infinite number of ambiguities and contradictions, yet every community hopes to find a resolution to this conflict either by joining, dividing, or stressing one act over the other. In this follow-up to Romantic A Universal Experience? , William R. Jankowiak examines how different cultures rationalize the expression of passionate and comfort love and physical sex. He begins by mapping out the intricacies of the love/sex conundrum and the psychological dilemma of reconciling these competing forces. He then follows with essays on sex, love, and intimacy among Central African foragers and farmers; the love dyad in Lithuania; intimacy among the Lahu of Southwestern China; the interplay of love, sex, and marriage in the High Himalayas; verbalized experiences of love and sexuality in Indonesia; love work as it relates to sex work among prostitutes; intimacies and estrangements in the marital and extramarital relationships of Huli men; infidelity and masculinity in Southwestern Nigeria; and the ritual of sex and the rejuvenation of the love bond among married couples in the United States.
- GenresAnthropology
290 pages, Paperback
First published January 25, 2008
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December 20, 2012
Use this as textbook in my Writing Studies course called "The Global Hookup: Mating and Dating in Your Culture and Around the World." Essays on how marriage and courting works in varying cultures, from couples doing absolutely everything together to fraternal polyandry where a few of the brothers are gone most of the time. Some essays are dense and long-winded, but book is informative and interesting.
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